


False Start

by Port



Category: Without a Trace
Genre: Amnesia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Showdown, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3112250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/pseuds/Port
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Showdown. Martin's recovery is hampered by problems no one on the team will talk about, and Danny isn't doing too well either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	False Start

**Author's Note:**

> I started this way back when the original episodes aired, picked at in the years that followed, and finally posted in 2010. My process, she is _slow_. But I have to say, this is one the most satisfying stories I've written. Thank you to Carina84 and Smilla for their help.

"What is the date?"

They ask him every time, because of the concussion. He answered wrong the first time, but not the second or third, nor any time after that.

"What is your name? Who is the president?"

Those he gets right from the start, the first time they asked him any questions, after he woke up in post-op. They figure the concussion can't be too bad, and he doesn't set them straight. All he wants to do is rest, unbothered.

He sleeps so much that he misses most of his visitors, coworkers and family members who come to give him their best wishes for a complete recovery. Their Hallmark cards sit in a pile beside two vases of wilting flowers, easier to deal with than the visitors would be, anyway. Most of them drop by,  watch him sleep, and leave the cards to keep him company for when he needs it. 

He is told Samantha comes often. Viv and Jack made appearances, but fewer than Martin would have predicted. Jack is busy closing the case that resulted in the shooting, while Viv recovers from her heart surgery. His aunt from Massachusetts drove down and took his mother out to dinner one night, before spending a few hours with him the next day. He was awake for some of that visit. Also for Danny:

Dragging himself from a dreamless sleep is like escaping a tar pit; weariness clings to him afterward, threatening to suck him back into unconsciousness. But he fights it off to find his hand held in a cold, sweaty grasp. Everyone holds his hand when he sleeps in the hospital, like he's going to slip away if they don't. Martin can't wait to slip away back to his home, if only to stop them touching him.

Disgruntled, he pulls back as much as he can, and the hand falls from his, like maybe the person holding on to him was in danger of slipping into nowhere, and now has. Martin opens his eyes.

Danny.

Danny looks as tired as Martin feels. Skinnier somehow. Because of the concussion, observations collect randomly in his mind. Danny's rumpled suit, thin wrists edging out of wide sleeves. His hair sticking up in the wrong places. A day's growth of beard. Bright red eyelids. Some kind of mark at his scalp, faint and new.

Danny was in the car. Someone had mentioned that, but Martin didn't want to believe.

"Are you okay?" Martin asks.

Danny's face crumples, like a clench, silently. One exhalation, and he relaxes, eyes dry. "I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm all right." He sounds subdued, like they are on a serious case. Also, there is a smell coming from Danny, a sharp scent he has never inhaled before. Martin wonders if stress has a smell. It's overpowering.

He finds himself with little to say while Danny studies him. His parents looked at him the same way, committing his broken body to memory, piece by piece, like this is the picture they want to take home with them at the end of the day. Anyway, it's not something he can ask them to stop doing. Like too much sleep and grabby, invisible visitors, it's something to endure for a while.

But while Martin's parents haven't looked him in the eye for some time, mostly because he won't let them, Danny is trying to. Martin directs his gaze to a safe point on the mattress, but Danny follows him, looking at the same spot and somehow drawing Martin's attention back to his face. Martin scowls. "Stop!"

And of course Danny reacts like a chastened child, embarrassed and petulant. He levers back in his chair like his joints have been greased. The sudden, jerky movement distracts Martin from wondering why Danny would try to look so closely into his eyes. A moment later, he's distracted even from that when Danny takes his hand in his own.

"Danny…."

Danny's eyes are shut, not tightly, just shut. He squeezes Martin's hand, and gentle is the word for it. Martin suppresses a shudder, wonders what this is, why he is in a hospital bed, in pain, with Danny holding his hand while he is still awake. Why now?

"Danny, what's going on?"

"I…."

All Martin can do is disentangle their fingers and slide his hand under the covers. He looks into Danny's eyes, letting them meet. But he's tired, and Danny's eyes are crowded, too full, communicating something Martin doesn't understand. He tries to unstifle the moment with a weak laugh. "What's going on, Danny?"

But Danny doesn't answer, and Martin is too tired to ask again. He blinks slowly….

Now Danny is gone, and a nurse comes and asks his name, the date, who is the president. The date doesn't trip him up like it did that first time. It's time to sleep again. 

~~

He rests for a long time, what seems like forever, and his body heals almost without his noticing. Eventually, he starts physical therapy, first in the hospital, then on an outpatient basis. It's difficult. 

His visitors make it more difficult, not that he has so many. His mother leaves for Washington the day after he moves back into his apartment, once she sees that he is settled. One or two other people stop by, then don't come again. Sam comes at six o'clock every evening for a week, like he's on her to-do list: go to grocery store, pick up dry cleaning, see Martin. The first three days, she brings groceries, before he tells her he has them delivered. It feels awkward having her there. Not so long ago, he ended their… thing. He broke up with her, yet she wants to wash his dishes, fold his laundry. She looks sad when he insists she leave it be, and that's wrong. It is. But, they tell him he was shot, and apparently that changes everything.

With Samantha underfoot every evening, he makes sure to practice his physical therapy in the mornings, so he has time to recover from it in the afternoons. It would be embarrassing how he collapses onto his bed every day after doing the simple aerobic exercises his therapist assigned him, except he doesn't have the energy to be embarrassed now. He sleeps for long hours, deeply. One day, he doesn't hear the knock on his door. 

Something else wakes him up, a feeling of being watched, the sense of someone's presence, and it alarms him in a way he's never experienced outside of a gunfight. He opens his eyes on a gasp, sees Samantha by his bedroom door, standing in shadows cast by the sunset.

"I'm sorry. I—are you okay? I knocked, but you didn't answer."

He's wearing sweats and a sickly damp t-shirt; he was too exhausted to climb under the covers before falling asleep. The t-shirt has ridden up, revealing the bandages wrapped around his lower chest. 

Her eyes are on him.

"What," he says with a dry mouth, "do you still have my key?"

She nods slowly, eyes still on him. "I guess I never—never got around to giving it back."

Martin rolls over, sits up in bed. She can see the effort of it. "Now's a good time."

She gasps, giving Martin a guilty satisfaction. She'd been trying to be kind to him, but he never asked for it, this change in their relationship, one he never initiated. Now he has a sense of getting some of his own back, even though that makes no sense. Samantha hasn't done anything to him. He promises himself he'll make it up to her later.

She twists his key off her ring, puts it on his dresser, mumbles something and leaves. The sun sets while Martin sits on his bed, wheezing softly, trying to put away the feeling of Sam's eyes on his bandages.

He's grateful that the most Jack and Viv have done is call over the phone.

~~

It's not the same for Danny, though. He is the one person Martin actually wants to see. That's not so different from usual;. Martin used to walk into the office every morning looking forward to seeing Danny. He used to leave the office every evening wishing he could think of an excuse to keep Danny with him. He knows why, and he's pretty sure Danny has not only caught on, but approves. That's the feeling Martin gets, and before the shooting, he'd been pretty sure they were headed for… well, a big change.

Two gunshot wounds and an indefinite leave of absence were not what Martin had had in mind. It had been something of a shock to wake up in the hospital, caught between anesthetic numbness and undeniable pain. Martin tells himself he's come a long way in the few weeks since then. Of most reassurance is the fact that every morning and every night, he still wants to see Danny. That kind of desire, even in the midst of a nightmare, has to be based on more than simple attraction.

However, neither he nor Danny has ever done anything more than look or banter, and even that has been quite mild. They're friends, but not all friends are the visiting type, are they? They've never been to each other's apartments, and at this stage, that would probably be kind of awkward. Not to mention, they were both in that car, and despite everyone's reassurances, Martin suspects Danny didn't survive without getting hurt.

He remembers that much from Danny's visit in the hospital; Martin had been really out of it at the time, so he only has impressions of seeing Danny by his bed: Danny rumpled, with red-rimmed eyes, seeming upset, but without all that energy he burns when he's really agitated. The memory reeks of a sharp, high, masculine odor that makes Martin grimace to recall.

He'd like Danny to visit, but he's not expecting it. So it's a surprise to open the door one afternoon and find Danny standing in the hall, holding a giant Starbucks cup.

"It's okay, right?" Danny gestures with the cup. "I wasn't sure what to bring."

Coffee, especially coffee that smells as strong as this, is on his list of prohibited food, and Martin's actually been adhering strictly to that list. He's incredibly grateful for the excuse to cheat.

"It's perfect," he says, accepting the steaming cup. Danny slowly follows him into the apartment. He seems better… at first glance, anyway. His eyes are back to normal, except for the bags below them. When he sits on Martin's couch, he gives the impression of never having rested before, all tense angles atop the soft cushions. Martin eases onto the matching loveseat, and despite his best efforts, a halting conversation begins. 

"I would have, you know, come sooner. But I heard Sam was, and then this afternoon she said she wasn't anymore, so I thought. You know. Maybe I'd drop by, see how you're…" 

It's killing both of them, this Hallmark sensitivity. It stands between them, in the place of something that used to be glad.

"Don't worry about it, man," Martin says, meaning it. He takes a long swallow of coffee. It's scalding hot, just the way he likes it. Later, his stomach may protest, but right now, this is the second best thing to happen to him all day. "It's easier to have company now than before anyway. Good timing."

"Uh-huh," Danny says. "I should have been here."

Martin shrugs. "What for?"

Danny looks startled. He stands up, then sits down.

Martin carefully places the cup on the table. It's half-empty. "Danny? What's going on with you?"

Danny is holding his own hands, squeezing them tightly. "Look, Martin, you remember at the—when Dornvald was shooting at us—"

\--on the pause for breath, Martin hears himself interrupt. "No."

Danny's train of thought breaks too easily. "What?"

"No, I don't remember it. The hit." Martin stares at a corner of his coffee table. He hasn't told anyone yet. Doesn't know why he told Danny.

"Wait a minute. You don't remember it? Any of it?"

Martin shakes his head, sucks the inside of his cheek. "Total blank."

For a long time, Danny is quiet. Martin peers up to see him studying the air in front of his face, like he's working out a math equation. His long fingers are steepled. Martin is about to say he's sorry, sorry for leaving Danny alone in this, when Danny speaks again.

"Total blank. What's the last thing you remember?"

It sounds important to Danny, so Martin goes back there. "Maybe two days before we started working the Paige Hobson case. I went home, took a shower, went to sleep." This is the bizarre part. "Woke up in the hospital." With two gunshot wounds and a concussion.

"You lost three days?" Danny throws himself against the back of the sofa, not relaxing. He closes his eyes and spreads the fingers of one hand across his face. Martin tries to identify what he sees. Relief, maybe? "Martin, how do you lose three days of your life?"

Like it was Martin's own doing. But he relishes the exasperation in Danny's tone. Everyone has been so… gentle. "By crashing a car and hitting your head, apparently." But he doesn't think before saying that. Danny squeezes his eyes shut.

"Yeah. Yeah, look, I need to get going. Wasn't planning to stay long…." He continues in that vein, refuses to be talked into staying, but promises to visit again. Halfway out the door, though, he turns around and asks with his quiet voice, "Martin…. I don't know how these things work, if it'll come back or what. But if it does… I'll still be here."

Martin has imagined the shooting based on people's descriptions of what happened. It's not something he hopes will ever recur to him. Except if it will help him talk to Danny. "I'm still here too, you know."

But Danny shakes his head and closes the door behind himself.

~~

Martin has never been much for TV, and lately he can't seem to read more than a few pages of any book. He sleeps too much already, and he's too tired from physical therapy to do anything else. The weeks stretch out before him, long, empty and most of all, boring. One day, he finds himself working on the crossword in the Wall Street Journal, and realizes he's killed a whole two hours already. He has a few missing words, but after he finds his thesaurus, it's down to one, and that word pops suddenly into his mind, a flash of inspiration. He grins and pencils it into the blank boxes.

~~

He needs a cane to walk, and he needs to take walks outside to get better, and he hates that. Martin is expert at motivating himself, though, so he promises himself a stop off at the drug store on the way home. There, he buys a book of advanced-level crosswords. On the other side of the aisle, a shelf of 500-piece puzzles catches his eye. He frowns and hobbles to the cashier.

Outside, the sky is solid grey, and the air isn't quite cold. Sometimes, Martin has this feeling of unfamiliarity with the world around him. Is it the beginning of spring, or the end of fall? All he can do is shake his head, remind himself it's March, and make his slow way home.

The stairs are a bitch, but he thinks that every day. He used to run in the mornings, and he used them as a warm-up. But when he got back and had to climb them after cooling down, they were a bitch. With the cane, they're ten times that. He takes them so slowly, and he feels eighty years old, leaning on the rail, his footsteps sounding heavy and succinct, like the period at the end of a sentence. 

The footsteps from the flights above him are quick and easy, and Martin grimaces to hear them approaching. People look at him funny when they pass, and he'd prefer to get to his apartment without that for once. 

However, the world is not a compassionate place. The man on his way down the stairs is Danny. He comes around the corner from the upper flight with his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket, not in a hurry, but walking with an ease Martin can't hope to match.

"Martin, hey." Danny's posture perks up, and he stops on a level with him. "I was just knocking on your door."

Martin wants to be happy to see him, but he might fall down if he doesn't rest very soon.

"Danny." He huffs a quick breath, not quite prepared yet to speak. He's pushed himself too hard today. "I just ran out to the drug store." Danny raises an eyebrow and Martin immediately resents him for it. "What's new?" he asks.

"Nothing, nothing. We miss you at the office is all, and I wanted to see… how you're doing." 

Danny is no good at this sensitivity stuff. It's damn obvious Martin can't even climb the stairs unless there's a paramedic with a defibrillator at the top. That's how well Martin is doing.

"Yeah. Well. Tell everyone I said hi, all right?"

This isn't the way he'd ever imagined a chance meeting with Danny. A brush-off, followed by an awkward parting, his apartment only a couple flights away. But if he invited Danny up, then he'd have to limp there with Danny walking slowly beside him, even offering an arm to lean on, and it would be too much to endure. When they got inside, Martin would only be able to crash on the couch but preferably on the bed, and all he wanted to do was sleep. 

They both knew it, too.

"Okay, I will." Danny paused, giving the distinct impression he wanted to help Martin up to his place. Martin straightened, lifting his chin, and Danny sighed. "Okay. I'll see you around."

Which would have been a good moment for Martin to invite him back later. It really would have been.

~~

It turns out Jack still wants Martin on the team, albeit working the desk full time. It's a relief to be away from his apartment, no longer filling out crossword puzzles and daring himself to remain disciplined with his PT and diet regimen. He had thought having people around would also be good, but it turns out everyone treats him differently at work. His whole life has been about avoiding condescension, but he suspects that even when he discards his cane, the others will still eye him with speculation and pity.

All but Danny, who doesn't eye him at all anymore.

Something is wrong. He can tell that much. Used to be, he could bundle together the best words to describe Danny: vibrant, energetic, sly, playful, intense. Now, though, Danny is washed out, absent. He comes in to work every day, solves crimes, writes reports, and does it all with a quietude Martin has never observed before. 

In the field, Danny is something else entirely. Martin hears it from Viv and Sam when they describe what happens out there, beyond his desk. He sees it in the discomposed lines of Danny's body when he comes in from a bust or interviewing a suspect. He reads the change in Danny every time he slams a drawer shut or kicks his chair under his desk, scowling at something no one else can see. One day, Martin hears it plainly from Jack's mouth. He has come upon Jack chastising Danny in a quiet hall. Martin has no clue what prompted it, but Jack is in Danny's face, patience lost, berating him, while Danny stares back defiantly. To Martin's surprise, Danny more than back-talks Jack, jamming his finger toward his nose and baring his teeth. 

Danny goes home early that day, but he comes in the next, looking self-possessed and professional and even a little dour. Martin wants to approach him, but something has been lost. The ease between them is tangled up, neither of them knowing how to unknot it, neither trying too hard.

And still, Danny searches Martin, just as he had when he brought coffee to Martin at home. When Jack pairs them together for a research assignment, more and more common now, Martin can find himself pinned by Danny's stare. It's not a shy thing. It calls up a memory from the hospital: Danny refusing to let Martin look away. Maybe it's a memory. Maybe it's only de-ja-vu. 

They've always looked at each other. Martin's pretty sure Danny has liked what he's seen. Leastways, he did before Adisa. There had been that thing between them, an inevitability neither had acted on. 

This doesn't feel like that. Unsure, though, Martin submits to it. Danny looks and looks, silent, squinting at times, his mouth a little open, determined, and in the end, always disappointed. Danny turns away, glances off toward the window, and gets back to the task at hand.

If anyone but Danny ever tried to put him through that, Martin—well, Martin wouldn't allow it. But this is Danny, and things aren't right with Danny anymore.

That becomes more apparent as time passes. Danny is in the office most days, with Martin, while the others get all the action outside. Martin can turn around and look at Danny ten times in an hour, and five times, he will see Danny staring at his keyboard, or out the window, or at his computer screen, blank and still. He hopes Jack doesn't notice. But the new Danny isn't trying to hide. 

He snaps at Sam when she comes by his desk with a file. Later he apologizes, but he does the same thing that afternoon to Martin. He doesn't apologize to Martin. In fact, he tries not to interact with Martin at all. When forced to, hostility bleeds through, always checked, but still present. Martin would be angry, but the hostility feels somehow false. And besides, Danny's conflicted attitude toward him is still better than everyone else's pity. He misses Danny of old, but still prefers this bitter copy to everyone he knows.

True thoughts like that distract Martin, for a few minutes at a time. If he prefers Danny the lion to everyone else's lamb, he really must be far gone. Maybe too far. Because it was never this hard, before the shooting. They were always on the cusp of something, back then, drawing it out as far as it could stretch. Maybe they shouldn't have waited so long.

~~

It's been a few months, and Martin has to force himself to go to the office every day. It didn't used to be this way. He never had to go to these lengths persuading himself not to call in sick. It had never occurred to him to take a personal day, before the shooting. After all, he loved his job. He loved being Special Agent Martin Fitzgerald. Even when he hated his job, wading up to his chest in murky ethics, it was better than anything else he could imagine.

Now, he sits at a desk all day, and everyone else sees him sitting at a desk all day, and they have to be thinking, "That must be all he's good for since the shooting."

He's damn good at the office work, the records checking, the phone calls, the research, the puzzling-out of a mystery. But a few years ago, Martin cut across the wooded span of a park and tackled a fleeing kidnapper into a pond. If he's the only one who remembers that, then maybe he no longer belongs here.

"Jack."

"What is it, Martin?"

Martin enters Jack's office and shuts the door. He takes a deep breath. "You know I've been cleared for work in the field."

Jack raises his eyebrows. "I know I have a form from your physical therapist saying you're back in shape. I didn't realize he had the authority to clear you for the field."

Martin opens his mouth. Shuts it. Feels his face getting red. It's all struggling to come out of him, but he's sure anything he says will put him back in his father's study, a little kid demanding attention in a high voice. "Jack," he starts, trying to put away any plaintive notes.

"Relax, Martin. I did some paperwork this morning. It should go through in a couple of days."

"Oh."

Jack rolls his eyes. "Try to cheer up, okay?"

"Yeah." Martin makes it to the door before he remembers to turn around and say thank you, but Jack's already concentrating on an open file.

"By the way," Jack says just as Martin opens the door. "We still need your statement in the Adisa case."

Damn. He still hasn't told anyone about the memory loss. Doesn't plan to. "I'll get to it," he says. 

"Uh-huh," is Jack's reply. He still hasn't looked up from his file. Martin closes the door behind himself.

A few days later, Jack sends Martin and Danny to stake out a suspect's workplace across town. A simple task for a maniac and a man with a cane, but it takes Martin away from his desk, another step closer to the way things used to be. They check out a company car in the garage downstairs, Martin wishing for Danny to lighten up a little, to complete his feeling of old times revisited. It's silly, but lately he has been thinking fondly of the way his job was before the shooting, when Danny was himself, more involved in everything that went on around him. Martin is trying not to use the word "worry" in conjunction with Danny, but it keeps coming up. He wants to go back to a few months ago, when Danny visited him in his apartment. Danny had been on the edge of saying something, Martin knew, poised to say something about that night.

Danny has closed up since then. He doesn't want to talk about the shooting. Martin wishes he could have said the right thing back then to make Danny talk. He wishes he could remember that night, so Danny wouldn't have to relive it alone. Martin's body remembers those few minutes of terror more than his mind ever will, and Martin wishes it were the reverse.

He has the keys to the white Honda Civic in the garage. He's thinking about traffic and the best route to the suspect's place as he unlocks the car and climbs behind the wheel. Danny sits in the passenger seat and Martin keys the ignition.

He doesn't really become aware of the elevated feeling in his head until halfway there, in the midst of midday traffic. It's like inhaling too much oxygen, all of it rushing through his bloodstream, slowing him down. He inhales sharply, noticing the way his vision has narrowed, the periphery cut out. 

It's been a while since his last panic attack. Sometime after the hospital but before returning to work. He has no idea what brought it on just now.

Beside him, Danny stares out the side window into the rain.

~~

As soon as Martin parks across the street from the little book shop they're supposed to watch, Danny opens his door, mumbles something and takes long, fast strides away down the sidewalk. Martin hardly hears the door slam shut.

If anyone enters or leaves the shop, Martin doesn't notice. Something's wrong, like the world is a photo negative of itself. He closes his eyes, counts to ten, tries to stop thinking about panic attacks. He doesn't even know what brought it on. One second, he's driving along, Danny silent, the only sound a steady drizzle against the roof and the windshield. The next second, he's checking and rechecking the mirrors, looking for something that should be there, the same way Danny has been searching Martin's face since the—hospital. Nothing's in their space, though. Nothing's out to get them.

It doesn't matter. Martin feels unsafe and dizzy, like the world is an upside-down image of itself, everything wrong. His heart beats faster than usual, and he has no idea how to slow it. The passenger door opens with startling suddenness.

"Here," Danny says, pushing a red Coke can into his hands. It's icy and perspiring. Danny's already opened the top. "Drink up."

Martin does. It burns on the way down, the fizz like acid. Maybe it'll eat away at the taste in his throat.

"Thanks," Martin says. He catches his breath. "Where's yours?"

Danny shrugs. His suit is damp from being out in the rain. "You wanna switch seats?"

Martin shakes his head. He'll get through this. He sips the Coke again.

Some time passes. Martin notices his blood sugar seems to have dropped, but the Coke helps restore it. Danny gets him to turn on the radio and sets the dial to a Spanish-language station. Martin opens his window, hoping the fresh air will be as refreshing as the soft drink. After a while, the incomprehensible prattle from the radio gets to him.

"What are they even talking about?"

Danny doesn't look over. "I thought you were working on your _espanol_?" 

Martin would if it would help him talk to Danny. " _Donde esta el bano_ ," he deadpans. 

Danny snorts.

" _Esta bien_?" Martin asks.

Some warmth softens Danny's face for the first time in a while. " _Si_ ," he says. Martin could almost believe it.

~~

In the morning, Danny is absent from a case briefing. If Danny hadn't been so erratic lately, Martin would have noticed his absence earlier. As it is, he doesn't think much of it until afterward, when Jack calls him into his office.

"Shut the door, please."

Martin shuts the door and tries to guess what this is about. It could be almost anything, from his field clearance to his work performance to more fallout from the shooting. The fact that so much is in the air these days bothers him, but he finds himself strangely unworried. There are many more important things to be worried about. Panic attacks. Three days he can't remember. Danny. The fact that they could have died and somehow didn't. He hasn't considered it much until recently, but now it takes his breath away.

Jack sits behind his desk and gestures for Martin to sit as well. He pauses a moment, clasps his hands on the desk. Martin holds very still.

"How are you doing, Martin?"

Oh, no. That isn't small talk preceding a different subject; that _is_ the subject. "Is there a problem?" Does he look like he's not doing well? He hasn't looked in the mirror and seen vitality, exactly, but he doesn't think he looks that bad. Bad enough to draw concern.

Jack raises his eyebrows and shrugs. "That's what I'm asking you. Your work has been fine, and I know you've been anxious to go back to the field. This isn't about that."

Martin replies carefully. "Then what's it about?"

The corners of Jack's mouth twitch up. His hands are still folded on the desk, at ease. "You tell me."

Martin has no idea how to answer. In fact, he's not sure he can answer. All of a sudden, he's wordless, and his throat feels tight. He needs to look aside, gather himself together, but Jack's gaze holds him still, rigid in his chair, for a never-ending lifetime.

"That's okay," Jack finally says. He shifts, breaks eye contact casually, and Martin draws in a breath that's too noisy by far. It makes him dizzy, but not the same way he was yesterday, in the car. Jack pretends not to notice. "I'm setting you up for some appointments with our psychologist. They're mandatory until he recommends otherwise, but you can continue seeing him after that if you want to."

"Jack—"

"Yes?"

Martin blinks. He'd expected Jack to talk over him. His first reaction is to protest, but though he does feel the bite of it, the idea of sitting down and talking to someone suddenly doesn't seem so bad. The list of people he could do that with is so short as to be nonexistent, comprised of his sister (who has her own problems—two kids and a divorce in progress) and his mom (whom he never wants to get very personal with, since she tells Dad everything). He'd wanted Sam on that list, a long time ago, but that hadn't worked out. Now that he thinks of it, when was the last time he trusted someone that way?

It was a while back, not long before the shooting. He and Danny had taken to leaving work together at the end of the day. They had started finding places where they could get a good meal. Martin had been pretty sure at the time that this would lead to sex, and Danny had seemed on board with the possibility, though he hadn't said anything. Neither had rushed things. They ate and talked and watched sports while talking or just being quiet, and then said goodnight. 

It had been nice. Something to look forward to day to day, and in the longer term. 

Since then, though, no. Martin had had nobody to talk to, and he's surprised to find how deep that need lies within him. He is physically exhausted from thinking too much.

Jack looks at him, patiently, hands steepled just below his chin.

"Yeah," Martin says. "All right."

~~

The appointment is a bust. Martin finds himself sitting on a too-low couch, legs awkwardly bent in front of him, making small talk with a doctor who never meets his eyes when he speaks. Martin watches the clock the entire time, regretting that he let Jack talk him into this. Martin doesn't talk about personal things, not with strangers.

He thinks about Danny, how he's probably sitting at his desk staring at the computer screen, gritting his teeth through the day. Recovery, he thinks, is a torpid bitch.

~~

Martin goes out with the team the next day, searching for a lost woman, her house left ransacked behind her. They crisscross the city as they follow one dead lead after another. The day is a long series of interviews with witnesses and family and coordination with the NYPD. In the end, she finds them, calls the hotline after seeing her face on the news and explains she took off after her husband flouted his restraining order. She's been hiding out in a motel, safe yet scared, and a twelve-hour day ends better than most.

When it's clear nobody has been hurt, Martin allows himself to feel good about returning to the field. He reclaimed some part of himself today. The only way this case could have gone better was if Danny had been out there too. But Danny is still benched, and he called in sick today.

But when Martin gets back to the office, he sees Danny and Jack in conference. He hangs back, prepares more slowly to leave for the night, hoping he can catch Danny on the way out. He's himself tonight in a way that he hasn't been since before he woke up in the hospital. One day, he'll stop judging time by that marker, but in this instance, it's okay; things are looking up.

He's still waiting for Danny and Jack to finish, but they seem serious, intent. This might not be the best time to catch Danny, to invite him out for a good meal, to get things back to normal. He presses his lips together. Tomorrow, then.

Vivian falls into step with him toward the elevator, hefting her coat on. Martin presses the button, and as they wait, Danny passes by, heading for the stairs.

"Was that our Danny?" Viv asks, turning to watch his back vanish around the corner.

Martin frowns, and Viv nods on a yawn. She gestures an offhand apology as they board the elevator. 

"You know he's taking some time off," she says.

No, he hadn't. "He okay?"

"I don't know, Martin. He's had a rough time since the, you know." No one likes to bring up the shooting to him and Danny. Martin wishes they would, though. With everyone at work refusing to talk about the elephant in the living room, Martin has had that same anxious feeling he remembers from growing up. It will never be as bad as his parents' silence, but it's still bad enough. It puts him in mind of escape.

"Yes," Martin says, hoping she'll tell him more. "Do you know—well, why that is?" It shouldn't be this hard for either of them. They survived, and it's been months.

Vivian opens her mouth, but the elevator reaches the lobby and the doors slide open. They walk out as others pass them by on their way upstairs to evening shifts. Vivian holds up a finger to Martin and they pass the security checkpoint together, exiting the building to find a warm, humid evening on its way in. Vivian resumes their conversation. "For a start, Jack hung him out to dry."

Martin raises his eyebrows. Jack and Danny haven't been getting along lately, but Danny's not getting along with anyone these days. "What do you mean?"

Vivian halts them and glances casually around. They're next to a pillar at the corner of the building, just before the steps, and she crowds into his space so she can talk in a confidential tone. "I mean Danny discharged his weapon six times that night, and Jack deviated from protocol in not confiscating it afterward. Danny remained on duty to help with the case, which is why he was able to shoot through a door at Dornvald in a hospital, without regard for a doctor being held hostage in the same room." 

She takes in his expression--all he can think is, Why haven't I heard about this?—and nods grimly. 

"Danny got away with it because the ethics committee found Jack at fault for violating protocol and allowing a compromised agent back into the field in the first place. I was still on medical leave when all this happened, but when I got back, Danny still hadn't gotten back to his normal headspace, and Jack's been riding him pretty hard."

Martin is speechless.

Vivian shakes her head. "Now we're a man short with Danny gone for who knows how long, when it probably could have been prevented by sending him home in the first place right after the shooting."

Martin has too many questions, but one is bigger and louder than all the rest. "Viv, are you saying Danny never…."

"Got time off or sent to counseling by Jack? Yes, I am. Not that Jack wouldn't have allowed either if Danny had requested it, but clearly that never happened."

"But didn't you have to…." He waves his hand, not sure how he knows this or whether he's supposed to.

"Yes, Jack gave me mandatory counseling sessions to _deal with my heart surgery_ ," and man, when did Vivian get so bitter? Martin is surprised to feel an echoing sentiment in himself. "The same way he sent Samantha after she was shot last year."

"I never had to go to counseling," Martin says slowly. Jack's timing now is starting to look a little suspect, like Danny taking time off finally rang some alarm bells, either in Jack's own head or with the higher-ups.

Vivian crosses her arms. "And why do you suppose that is?" She shakes her head. "I should file a complaint."

Martin half-wishes he could file a complaint to someone. It would be expansive.

~~

As Martin says good night to Vivian, he turns and sees Danny on the other side of the pavilion, walking down the steps with his hands in his pockets, head down, tension in the set of his neck and arms. Martin steps forward, the beginning of a call on his tongue, hesitates, and completes the motion.

"Danny! Wait up."

Danny looks up and waits as Martin jogs over. It tugs a little; the skin where the sutures had kept him together feels tight, not quite elastic enough. He slows as he reaches Danny, streetlight glinting wetly off the cement. A misty drizzle is dampening their clothes, revealing their breath.

Danny shrugs in greeting, hands still in his pockets.

"You should have said hi," Martin says. "Since you were here."

Danny shakes his head. "I was just turning in some paperwork. It's late. I didn't want to bother you all."

Martin almost lets the lie pass. "You didn't want to say goodbye."

"Martin—"

"Are you coming back?"

Danny's hands lift out of his pockets, come to rest at his hips, and he frowns the way he used to when they fought. "Of course I am!"

Martin has the sudden childish urge to ask Danny where he's going and why. "You're sure?"

Danny's eyes have been downcast, but he raises them to hook his gaze into Martin's. He has dark circles under his eyelids; under the streetlamps they appear bruised. He looks old in his tiredness and young in his openness. "Pretty sure."

No, then.

"I, uh…." He scratches the back of his neck. "I always thought it would be me. If anyone left the team, I mean."

Danny nods carefully; it's never been something they've discussed, the strain. Everyone feels it; it's part of the job. Those lost people out there, their bodies waiting to be discovered, identified and put to rest. Those children.

It's clear to everyone that Martin isn't built for this. He leaves for home strangled and weary. He wakes up in a neglected apartment, no light coming in through the windows. He eats fast food on the subway, buys more in the lobby and sets himself to tracking down the lost. 

He hasn't gone running since before the hit on him and Danny and Adisa. There was something else, he thinks. Something else he had. But it's gone now, knocked away by the concussion he sustained in the accident.

They all know Martin's not cut out for it; they won't be surprised when he acknowledges it and leaves. Someday, a few years from now, Martin probably will. When the balance of the living and the dead sends him too far away from himself. He'll leave. 

But Danny. Danny should never leave. The work renews him, or at least it used to. He used to have it so together. They both know about Martin, about how he can't measure up. But Danny shouldn't have to leave like this.

"Do you want to—"

"It's late," Danny says simultaneously. Martin is sure his own expression matches Danny's, regretful and embarrassed. "I mean—it's just late. I have to—"

"No. No, I know. I meant maybe some other time." He'd meant they could find a diner open now, tonight, a café or bar or bowling alley. He'd meant— "I'll call you."

Danny jerks his head as he nods. "Yeah. Yeah." He steps backward, as though leaving, black coat rustling, but he doesn't turn. In this hair's breadth of a moment, he is as tall and three-dimensional as he used to be, powerful the way Martin likes him. Martin might be a little transfixed, and if he is, then that might be what decides it for Danny, what flips the switch. Danny rocks backward, momentum for the long step he takes toward Martin.

"The hell is this, Martin? You'll call me. Great. Thanks, just what I always wanted. Don't you—"

"Don't I what?"

Danny squeezes his hand into a fist and presses his lips together, tight. He turns around in a circle. 

"Don't I remember?" Martin asks. "I've been _trying_. Don't you think I would? Why don't you give me a clue, Danny? Let me in on our big—"

Secret. He'd been about to say secret.

But Danny comes close and grips Martin's shoulders, elbows bent between them. His gloves and Martin's coat prevent the transfer of warmth, but the pressure of Danny's fingers and palms is hard, a little rough. Martin's not the type to wait. He leans forward, this high feeling like anger compelling him, and Danny is there.

This time, Martin will remember what they do. His hands and Danny's hands manhandling each other, pushing, pulling, forcing. The scrape of Danny's glove across Martin's cheek. The sharpness of Danny's teeth against his tongue. Martin's coat riding up on his shoulders, the crick in his neck, the moment they break apart before they can trip over each other's feet. 

"I forgot that?" Martin asks, breath misting hotly into the cool, dark air.

Danny smiles beneath round eyes, a little smug under the shock. "You were concussed."

~~

Martin is sure he'll never remember the lost days. Danny won't tell him about them either, won't describe what they did and why they did it then, why they stopped waiting. He gets downcast thinking of it, so Martin lets it go. That's his only concession.

"I want to know about that night," he tells Danny, over and over. He wants to have been there with Danny. After a few weeks, Danny relents.

"You looked at me," is all he can say at first.

"You looked so sorry. Your face was full of regret. Like you had to leave. And then you closed your eyes."

Martin presses his lips against Danny's, thumbs Danny's closed eyelids. It's hours before morning, their knees and ankles interlocked beneath Martin's sheets. Danny's arm is tense over Martin's bare ribcage. They kiss languidly until sleep overcomes them.

That morning, Martin dreams of his own blood on his hands, of searching for Danny so he can say goodbye. It's not a memory, but neither is it a good dream. Beside him, relaxed along Martin's side, Danny sighs, tranquil.


End file.
